English Onion Soup

This is one of my favourite soups to make. The effort of cutting up nearly a kilo of onions is absolutely worth the effort.  This is not something you can just whip up & be eating inside of 20 mins for a quick supper. All told it takes about an hour (50 mins of that is onion cooking time, when you can potter about doing something else). The end result is fantastic.

This is derived from a Jamie Oliver recipe. I used to be a bit take-it-leave-it about Jamie Oliver. I never really got into the whole naked chef thing. But lately the recipe's of his I have tried have been just fantastic: straightforward & delicious. I have also been hugely impressed with his efforts to improve school children's lunches, as well as just generally raise nutritional awareness. 

Yes I love to cook, and I like good food. But I still am staggered at how 'unaware' people can be of what they put into their bodies. Fruit, veg, protein, wholemeal grains. I mean come on: its only hard to remember if you don't want to remember it . . . . Maybe like walking from your car is hard so you drive through Maccas to collect your dinner instead. Oy.

But all this is beside the point: this 'English Onion Soup'.

I just love this soup: it is hearty, warming and just so delicious & I think my friends really enjoyed it. The cheesy toasts just complete it: they work so well, though if I were warming a bowl for just me at home I might not bother with this step unless I really felt like it. It would probably work w/ Parmesan cheese too, though maybe omit the Worcestershire sauce if you were doing this.

I used a smoked vintage cheddar for this that I purchased at Harris Farm: it was around $7 - $8 for a block large enough to yield enough grated goodness to amply cover 10 toasts. I think the smokey-ness of the cheese gives it a great flavour, but obviously totally up to you. I wouldn't use Coon, or Bega for this: I think it would be too stringy, or plasticy, when you tried to melt it.

Apparently the trick to cutting onions is to have a knife as sharp as possible, which means there is less 'tearing' of the onion, meaning the tear-fumes won't torn & released. Or something like that. I find a snorkel/goggle combo works a treat, but perhaps that is taking things to extremes.

English Onion Soup

A good knob of butter

olive oil

a big handful of sage leaves

6 cloves of garlic, crushed

Onions - as many different ones as you can, peeled & sliced e.g:

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5 red onions

3 white onions

3 eshallots

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300g leeks, trimmed, washed & sliced

2ltr good stock (any 'flavour' you like - beef works well, but then they all do!)

8 slices good-quality bread; a little stale, or I just grab some straight from the freezer 

200g cheddar cheese, grated

Worcestershire Sauce

1) Put the butter, 2 glugs of the olive oil, sage & garlic into a heavy pan. 

Now I always screw up this step as I inevitably slice the garlic, pop into a mixing bowl, then slice the onions & put them on top as I go.  I then realise my mistake when I get to the cooking part. I once upended the bowl ,but fishing slivers of garlic out of a 1kg of sliced onions is a tedious task, and one I abandoned after less than 30 seconds.  If you make a similar mistake, don't worry, I just omitted the sage from the first step, and dumped the garlic & onions together into the pot.

2) Stir everything around & add the onions, eshallots & leeks. Season w/ S&P, place lid on pot, slightly ajar, and cook slowly for 50 minutes. You don't want to colour the veg too much, so keep the heat on the very low end of medium (or the just medium end of low). Remove the lid for the last 20 minutes, the onions should be soft & golden. Stir occasionally so none of them have caught on the bottom of the pan. I know this is a long process, but your patience will be rewarded (Shout-Out: Ali!! xx).

3) When the onion & leeks are lovely & silky, add the stock, stirring well again to make sure the onions have been lifted from the bottom & mixed through the liquid. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat & simmer for 10-15mins.

4) Turn your grill on (if yours has a temperature option, you want it on max. My grill is an on/off only affair). Toast bread on both sides (in a toaster), then pop onto a baking sheet lined w/ alfoil & lightly sprayed w/ olive oil. Pile a mound of the grated cheese onto each toast, sprinkle over the Worcestershire Sauce, and pop under the grill.

5) Making sure you are monitoring the grill process carefully, ladle the soup into bowls. Once the cheese has nicely melted & is bubbling a little, remove from under the grill, place one toast into each bowl, and serve.

(Sorry! Was so busy devouring my soup I forgot to take a photo of the finished product!)

Wine Match!

I served this with a couple of bottles (hey, there were 8 of us!) of a lovely Reisling from a vineyard in Orange called Mayfield. The lovely flavours of the wine, which has a slight oakey-ness (of which I am not usually a fan) paired perfectly with the soup.

http://www.mayfieldvineyard.com/product.php?id_product=9